House, Senate face off over defense bill

Election-year politics and a looming lame-duck showdown over taxes and spending threaten a long-standing tradition: For the past 50 years, Congress has passed an annual defense authorization bill, setting parameters and priorities for Pentagon spending.

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The nation’s mounting debt and persistent congressional gridlock could make some of the differences between the bill approved by the Republican-controlled House and the one making its way through the Democratic-controlled Senate all but impossible to reconcile.

Still, some members remain optimistic. “The Armed Services Committee may be the last bastion of bipartisanship remaining in this Congress,” Arizona Sen. John McCain, the top Republican on the Senate committee, told reporters last week.

Here’s a survey of the congressional battlefield:

The big number

President Barack Obama’s plans for a downsized military will be under attack as the House and Senate spar over the size of the Pentagon’s budget.

The Senate bill, approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee last week and expected to be considered on the floor within the next few weeks, lines up with the president’s budget request, while the House follows the fiscal plan put forward by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), chairman of the House Budget Committee.

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said: “We’re within the Pentagon’s budget — $631.4 billion — unlike the House of Representatives, which was about $4 billion over the president’s budget request.”

That $4 billion represents less than 1 percent of the Pentagon’s overall budget. Still, the difference in the cost of the two bills is likely to be one of the major sticking points once the competing measures reach a joint House and Senate conference committee for reconciliation, said Todd Harrison, a defense expert at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

“The House is more concerned about the top line and keeping it higher than the president’s request,” he said. “Going into an election year, they don’t want to be seen as underfunding defense.”

The Senate, for its part, will be reluctant to deviate from the president’s numbers.

The difference between the two bills, Harrison added, pales in comparison to the billions of dollars in automatic cuts, called sequestration, that are set to begin taking effect next year. “Those would represent a 10 percent cut,” he said.

Civilian cuts

The top contributor to the $4 billion difference is the Senate plan to reduce the Pentagon’s civilian workforce.

The Senate committee bill, which will be open for amendments on the floor, calls on the Defense Department to cut its number of civilian workers and service contractors by 5 percent over five years. Under the House bill, the workforce would remain intact.

McCain called the provision “one of the most important things we did,” noting the number of civilian Defense Department employees has grown 16 percent since 2007. The proposed reductions would save about $5 billion, he said.

Already, though, House Republicans are questioning the plan. “The Senate is shirking its responsibility,” Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) told POLITICO. An across-the-board cut in the civilian workforce, he said, is a sneaky way to stay within the cost limits put forward by the president while avoiding tough decisions.

“The House took a dutiful look to identify areas that we could responsibly cut,” he said.

Readers' Comments (10)

Prior to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq the defense budget was in the 400 billion range. Now that we are practically out of both wars, these guys still insist they cannot survive on 634 billion. That makes no sense to me.

While the GOP says that we have a huge deficit, they still favor tax cuts for their millionaire friends, keeping the Bush tax cuts AND uncontrolled military spending. We already spend more than the rest of the world COMBINED, but they refuse to budge on 1%. They do this for their rich defense contractor friends and their rural army base districts. This IS pork politics on a grand scale. Real leaders don't throw their children's money away to help themselves. If multi-millionaire Bill O'Reilly cared about America, he wouldn't be campaigning for his own tax cuts and reckless military spending to help his friends. Where's the 'We can't afford an air campaign in Libya' Republicans now? Oh, they know you're too dumb to remember anything they say.

outrageous this shows just what hypocrites the republicans in congress are. This is their socialism, bankrolling defense contractors. Its no different than the inefficient state run enterprises in China, way to go republicans.

yep agree, defense contractors should be called socialist. need to cut to 400 billion. reduce exposure overseas by closing bases and selling if possible. remove subsidies to Egypt and Israel. slow down or stop building 11th arircraft carrier. eliminate production of M-1 Abrams. etc etc

yep the defense contractors are socialist sucking at the government teat. need to stop building 11th carrier(mis named Gerald R Ford) stop production of A-1 abrams, reduce spending of fighters shifting to drones sell overseas bases and bring troops home now.

yep the defense contractors are socialist sucking at the government teat. need to stop building 11th carrier(mis named Gerald R Ford) stop production of A-1 abrams, reduce spending of fighters shifting to drones sell overseas bases and bring troops home now.

Politico: The House bill allocates $100 million to start planning an East Coast missile shield — one of the most controversial provisions so far. The Senate committee bill rejects the plan — setting the stage for a showdown on the Senate floor or in conference.

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Panetta slams House for Budget extras

May 11, 2012

WASHINGTON -- Defense Secretary Leon Panetta slammed a House panel on Thursday for adding billions of dollars to President Barack Obama's defense budget, including money for a new East Coast missile defense site that the military says is unnecessary.

Asked specifically about the new missile defense site, [Army Gen. and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff] Martin Dempsey told reporters "the program of record for ballistic missile defense for the homeland, as we've submitted it, is adequate and sufficient to the task. And that's a suite of ground-based and sea-based interceptors. So I don't see a need beyond what we've submitted in the last budget."

The government awards contracts to companies with histories of misconduct such as contract fraud and environmental, ethics, and labor violations. In the absence of a centralized federal database listing instances of misconduct, the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) is providing such data.

Politico: The top contributor to the $4 billion difference [between the House and senate bill] is the Senate plan to reduce the Pentagon’s civilian workforce. The Senate committee bill, which will be open for amendments on the floor, calls on the Defense Department to cut its number of civilian workers and service contractors by 5 percent over five years. Under the House bill, the workforce would remain intact.

The government is raising the cap on what it pays contractors' top five executives to $723,029, a 10 percent increase, federal procurement officials announced Monday.

The cap, up from $693,951, applies to contract costs for compensation — including wages, salary, bonuses and deferred compensation — incurred after Jan. 1, 2011, according to a notice published in the Federal Register. It applies only to a contractor's top five executives; other contractor employees can earn more.

The cap is based on a federal executive compensation formula that pleases neither the administration nor federal employee unions.

"Current federal employees have had their own salaries frozen for two years and new employees will have to pay four times as much in retirement contributions, saving the government $75 billion. Yet nothing is being done to trim out-of-control contractor spending," said John Gage, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees.